Current affairs

“Working with talent is crucial and you have to retain it by offering training, prospects for the future and a career plan”

With exponential growth from 300 to 700 employees contracted in Spain, Grant Thornton visited the Madrid Campus during EAE’s Talent Week, presenting the company and the opportunities for joining it.

Thursday, 30 de March, 2017

“Working with talent is crucial and you have to retain it by offering training, prospects for the future and a career plan”

Thursday, 30 de March, 2017

Operating in more than 130 countries with more than 47,000 professionals, Grant Thornton provides auditing and consulting services and tax, legal and financial consultancy, and is well-established as a leader in the sector. Jaime Romano, a lecturer at EAE Business School and a partner at Grant Thornton, and his colleague Pablo González-Costea, Director of Human Resources at Grant Thornton Spain, visited the Madrid Campus of EAE Business School during Talent Week to meet the students with the most financial who may be interested in developing their careers in the multinational.

During the conference, they shared various statistics about Grant Thornton, especially in relation to the company’s growth in Spain. “Over these last five years, against a negative economic backdrop, we have been able to grow from 300 to 700 employees at a national level”, highlighted Pablo González-Costea, also underlining the prospects for the future. “So far this financial year, from September 2016 to February 2017, the company has grown by 20%, more than 100 new professionals joining the firm within just six months”. These figures certainly bode well for the successful future for the company, with growth rates of between 20% and 25% over the coming years.

For this reason, the professionals from Grant Thornton came to EAE’s Talent Week with the aim of the best young talent at the School. In the presentation, they gave an overview of both the trainingplan that all of the professionals receive and the careerplan, consisting of lifelong training, feedback from superiors, an internal promotion scheme and, lastly the opportunity to take part in exchange and mobility programs.

With four separate lines of business (Auditing; Management, Risk & IT Consulting; Financial Advisory; Tax and Legal Consultancy), Grant Thornton is interested in hiring all kinds of profiles. As a lecturer at the School, Jaime Romero already knows the students’ interests and acknowledges that “the biggest focus for EAE is on the consultancy part, in which the company has already recruited around 15 people”.

To be a Grant Thornton professional, candidates must go through a “selection mechanism designed to recruit the best”. To do so, crucial requirements include academic qualification (Bachelor’s Degree or University Diploma in Business Administration and Management, Law or Engineering), Postgraduate or Master studies related to the line of business that they want to join and a high level of languages (command of English and, on occasions, a second foreign language). Furthermore, in the interview, candidates must also demonstrate their passion for working, motivation and commitment.

Diversity, training, teamwork, growth, internationalization, recognition, personal development, ethics and flexibility are some of the aspects and values offered by Grant Thornton that make the company “the best place to grow”.

The company’s Director of Human Resources sees things clearly: “Working with talent is crucial and you must retain it by offering training, prospects for the future and a real, interesting and clear career plan”. To this end, he acknowledges that Grant Thornton is willing to accompany new recruits, offering year-on-year growth in terms of responsibilities and remuneration. With a commitment to clear transparency, Pablo González-Costea believes that it is crucial that a young professional “knows their future, what will happen if they continue working as they are over the next five years and what position they could hold and what they have to do to achieve this”. According to the guest speakers at the conference, Grant Thornton places a strong emphasis on the personal welcome and induction that new recruits receive, ensuring that they do not get stuck in the same position.